Let's talk shirts

[Stauff]

OK, Gentlemen, tell me: which brand, colour, fabric (two-ply or not?), collar, cuffs, etc.

To kick off: I mostly wear a plain white or cream Jacques Britt shirt with an Eton collar, old-style regular cuffs and mother of pearl buttons. My favorite shirt is a striped-blue two-ply Atteseta (made in Florence, holiday gift, sadly I have only one ).

Please discuss.

 

[castlecraver]

OK, Gentlemen, tell me: which brand, colour, fabric (two-ply or not?), collar, cuffs, etc.

To kick off: I mostly wear a plain white or cream Jacques Britt shirt with an Eton collar, old-style regular cuffs and mother of pearl buttons. My favorite shirt is a striped-blue two-ply Atteseta (made in Florence, holiday gift, sadly I have only one ).

Please discuss.

Unfortunately, I don't have enough cash to buy the more expensive menswear, but I don't get a chance to wear dress shirts very often anyway in my job. I am very insistent about french cuffs however... its the little things that make you stand out.

 

[Stauff]

Unfortunately, I don't have enough cash to buy the more expensive menswear, but I don't get a chance to wear dress shirts very often anyway in my job. I am very insistent about french cuffs however... its the little things that make you stand out.

An academic without a (white) shirt?

 

[MasonM]

I don't have a particular brand that I purchase, I only insist that they are well made. There are few things more annoying than paying $75 for a shirt just to have the buttons fall off. I will often buy them at a men's shop and request that all of the buttons be resewn by hand prior to picking them up.

As for color, I enjoy variety and between shirts and ties go with a broad spectrum of colors and designs. What I select to wear just depends upon the time of year and where I am going. As I am no longer in a position that requires suits for work I am free to wear styles and designs that would be less than conservative in an office setting. My favorite tie is one that depicts the Three Stooges along it's length. I actually wore that one to a corporate meeting once.

 

[rtaylor61]

During the summer, our attire at work is golf shirts. Once we hit the time change in October, it's back to shirt and tie. All of my work shirts come from a big & tall shop. Copper Canyon. All black with button down collars, long sleeves that are rolled up two turns. Since I am almost totally color blind, my attire is all black. And when I buy ties, I buy ties that can be worn with black. This has eliminated any embarassing dress mistakes.

Randy

 

[jduffy]

I work in entertainment so we can wear pretty much what we want. I wear a lot of aloha shirts, Hilo Hattie if you please!

 

[castlecraver]

An academic without a (white) shirt?

I'm just a graduate student. I haven't earned my elbow patches yet. Plus, I deal with a lot of chemicals that stain or that I otherwise wouldn't want to get on my clothes, so I usually go with a polo shirt or casual button-down for under my lab coat. When I have a chanceto present my work and pontificate like a prof, though, I'm usually sporting a crisp, starched Ralph Lauren french-cuff under my sportcoat.

 

[fuerein]

I go for whatever brand, etc. that has the appropriate neck/sleeve sizes. My particular size combination can be tricky to find. Once had a sales assistant at Macy's ask if she could help and what size I wore. Her response when I told her was something along the lines of "Um, yeah, finding that is going to be hard."

 

[jmhUT]

I pretty much only wear those new wrinkle-free cotton shirts. I buy the Roundtree and York Gold labels from Dillards. They do need to be ironed and they do wrinkle but the wrinkles fall right out. Great shirts. They cost $50 and have a few different styles to choose from. I mostly wear the pinpoint 80s 2ply, button down collars, cuffs rolled twice Randy style. As for collor I pretty much stick to white and blue. I've got a few other colors as well but I don't wear them as much.
Cheers,
Jeff

 

[Dennis]

Anyone here have experience with Charles Tyrwhitt shirts? The 50% off deal doesn't seem too bad...

Dennis

 

[ouch]

The only thing I know about shirts is that if my wife washes them even once, they'll barely fit the dog.

 

[thestubblefactory]

We dress casual here at work (golf shirts, button downs, Khaki's) and very casual on Fridays (jeans, some type of collared shirt). We are a consulting company. But when we go to clients we usually (unless they ask us to be casual) dress up. In that case I wear french cuffs if I'm wearing a suit and a regular button down if I'm wearing a sportcoat.

I think I only have two clothing pet peeves: one is when some guy wears french cuffs without a coat and tie. To me that is totally weird!!! Another is when a "heavy set" woman wears high heels!

 

[adildhanani]

As someone who went to private school for most of his life and now works in retail - part time that is - I have had quite a lot of experience with shirts for someone my age, 19.

That being said, I have found that shirt preferences are very personal and that, while most of us younger guys prefer fitted shirts, it is important to remember comfort is very important as well.

My current favourite shirts are;

Under 100$: MATINIQUE of Denmark (usually around 90$)
Under 200$: ALTEA of Italy (150-190$) or ANTONIO AMORIM of Portugal (135$)
Over 200$: Thomas Pink of London

I tent to like my shirts on the finer, yet texutred side with a nice strong spread collar and French Cuffs.
Fabric is very important and therefore I tend to make feel of the shirt my number one criteria along with colours/paterns - assuming of course it fits my requirements for a nice strong collar and good fit.
Also, as someone who is both young and works in retail, I have no problems with wearing colours, as wearing something something that is bold, yet well co-ordinated is not only fun, its individualistic.

Just my two cents.

Adil.

 

[Sam]

I have a lot of preferences so I will list what I like.

Zegna shirts: Real mother of pearl buttons, thick as all get out and cupped like a small soup bowl. Very, very nice textures and fabrics. $300 or so, but I wait until they are at least half price. I have 3 of them and all of them are topnotch.

Paul Frederick: You can get a 180's shirt for like $60 on sale. Decent for that price, but nothing extraordinary. I have two. Sorta thin material.

Robert Talbott: The most likely purchase I make. Very good tailoring, unique fabrics, top notch materials and such. $135 to $155 for the ordinary, sometimes $175 or so for cufflinks. I love his ties and cufflinks as well.

Ike Behar: You can find these discounted at times, so be careful to make sure it is not his Off-Fifth brand. I do not like them as much as Talbott so I would not pay full price for a Behar shirt unless it was his semi custom shirtings. By that, I mean you get a swatch of fabric and can pick out the cuff, the collar and some basics made to measure measurements taken. They run about $135 or so but for $20 more, you can get a Talbott.

Charvet,Brioni, Kiton, out of my price range. I have two Brioni ties but at $255 per, Id not pay that much. Got each for less than $50 a piece.

I do have Thomas Pink cufflinks. You could try Hildritch and Key and Turnbull and Asser shirts. Im not up on English shirts. I dont find the fabrics to be any nicer than Talbott.

Brooks Brothers has some great non-iron shirts and all cotton, and they have good sales. I wear suits 6 days a week mostly, so I like to have shirts and ties most guys dont. Everyone has the blue pinstripped suit, but a nice shirt and tie always gets me compliments.

Sam

 

[scruffyv]

The Tyrhwhytte (spelling?) shirts are OK. I have one. The distinguishing characteristic is that they actually fit at the shoulder and the armhole. Many even good american made shirts are made for, er, I am not quite sure who. The shoulders are too wide at least for me, and the gut area of the shirt is too baggy. The Tyrwhyte shirts fit better.

In the same family, the Thomas Pink shirts are in my opinion a cut above the Thywhyte's, in terms of the quality of the cloth and the sewing. I have a pink Pink shirt that looks really cool with a light grey suit. But then again I dress a little flashy mainly just to relieve workday boredom.

I guess there are a few variables here-- cloth (supposedly Italian and Egyptian cotton is best) Threadcount (120s or higher gives a silky feel) and tailoring (off the rack shirts are all over the map), and color (some makers can really get the colors and patterns right-- I think Tyrwhytte and Pink really do a good job at that.) If you are comfortable spending more that $100 for a man's dress shirt it may make sense to go custom.

I agree on the french cuffs-- they are cool, but I don't like to wear them every day.

I read somewhere that the bolder colors originate from the other constraints of English formal mens wear-- the tie you wear and the style of suit you wear were somewhat constrained by your profession and station, so the only means of individual expression was in the shirt.

Personally, I do not like white dress shirts, and wear everything but day to day. I either wear the Pink or the Tyrwhytte, or I have a bunch of men's wearhouse shirts that I had taken in a bit to fit better.

Vin

 

[Tito]

Shirts?

I have taken a liking to the shirts that J.Crew has these days. Both dress & casual. Plus their prices are not over the top. Their so called haberdashery shirts (dress shirts) are quite nice. I really like the fact that you can just about get everything you want from them in one stop also.

 

[ratcheer]

My tastes are fairly simple - I like Land's End top line oxfords with button-down collars. Sorry, I can't remember off-hand what they call them, but they are the heavy oxford cloth.

Tim

 

[Edcculus]

Been working with maintenance at the printing plant I'm at for my internship, so I usually wear something I can get lots of ink, oil and grease on.

 

[Opus_Y_&_Z]

For dress shirts, I prefer Burberry and Brooks Brothers. I'm old school, so I typically don't get the non-iron as they seem to have a bit of a different texture. I just let the dry cleaners handle the pressing. I prefer straight/point or spread collars, and don't like button-down collars. I wear suits on a frequent basis, and I've always felt that point or spread collars are more dressy. About 10% of my dress shirts are french cuffs. This is a fun topic!

 

[Scorpio]

Vin... judging by your avatar you must go through a lot of shirts

my kind of shirt...the one that is on sale!!!!!!!!

Golf shirts in the summer, Ashworth, Bobby Jones, Nike, George Strait, LaCoste, Byron Nelson

Fall/winter Long sleeves usually George Strait by Wrangler. If business attire is require Geoffrey Beene, Van Huesen, Arrow.

Raf